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Carter moves to the next file. He immediately scowls.Nolan McFee. 3.4.
The first picture confirms what Carter expected. Fucking 3. He hates himself for hating the young man - they're on the same side here - but he just can't help it. If Carter had a nemesis, it'd be 3.
He does his best to hide the uncontrollable feeling by sliding on a bored expression. Nolan's first picture is surprising. He's tall and broad with football gear on and a helmet hanging loosely from his fingers. There's a trophy in his other hand, which he's holding with a guy his same age and height. He's in a number 14 jersey, the other guy number 17. His hair is curled behind his ears, nearly to his shoulders, sweaty and pushed back in a surprisingly sexy way. His arms are big for a high school player. His grin is huge and charming. His blue eyes reflect the stadium lights. This isn't what Nolan looks like now. If it wasn't for the facial features that are only slightly sharper now due to lack of nutrition, he'd think this wasn’t the current 3 at all, but a past one instead.
His mask of indifference slips as he checks the second picture. It's more like the current Nolan, his hair cut short and his body having lost some muscle mass, but still a picture of a jock. His confidence is stripped though. His bravado is missing.
The note on this photo is similar to Bryce's and Jonathan's, but one thing is different. After the physical description and the language, he doesn't have complaints written about him. Nothing about disobedience or being a poor listener. Instead, Nolan is described as:Naturally submissive. Obedient. Eager to please.
Carter goes back to the first photo, reading the note. His own self-hatred comes back with a vengeance when reading that Nolan's favorite color is maroon, he knows how to knit, he will go down dying over his opinion that SpongeBob is the best show ever to be in existence, and he wants to work in the tech industry, doesnothingto make him like the boy more. No smiling to himself. No happy flutter feelings.
He doesn't hate him enough to want to read the medical records, though. Nor the behavioral reports - though he suspects there aren't many if his sticky note from the slave photo was truthful.
“Heisin love with you, by the way," Carter grumbles as he drops the file down between them on the floor. He reaches for the next one, trying for nonchalant. "You can deny it all you want, but he is."
Nathan flicks his gaze down to the folder, reading the name and number. He doesn't open it to see a picture. He knows 3 from just reading the label. It shouldn't hurt Carter, but it does. He masks it with anger.
Stupid fucking 3.
“Nolan likes that I don't punish unnecessarily. And that I give praise." He sighs. "A boy like him, it hurts even worse to be treated poorly. He really is a natural. We bought him just a week after being taken for training, and he was already so good. You could tell a part of him wanted this - notthis, but something similar. Something consensual. You could tell he felt ashamed of that, but it didn't take long for him to embrace it instead. He likes being good. Being used. Being taken care of and ordered around. I have no doubt he would have found his way into kink, perhaps even a master slave dynamic, if this hadn't happened to him. I hate that it did. When he's freed, I'm afraid he won't ever allow himself to go looking for anything kink related. I'm afraid his guilt and his trauma will keep him from pursuing something I truly believe is in his bones. It makes me very sad for him."
Carter feels sad too. He hates it. And he hates himself for hating it. If he was a teenager again, he’d be feeling a seriousughright now.
Maybe he is anyway.
“Doesn’t change the fact that he loves you.”
“Like I said, he loves that I give him the closest thing to what he truly desires. He wants to be good, he wants to please, and he wants to be used and taken care of in return. I give him that. Some of the other men don't. Many of them enjoy setting slaves up for failure. Or not even bothering to set them up, just completely disregarding their actions altogether. Most of my men know how much he loves praise and how badly he wants to be good. A few like to use that against him. They like to hurt him and then tell him he did bad or he disappointed them before leaving him all alone in whatever room they used him in without a glance backward. It crushes him. He goes empty usually, for at least a few days. I try to make sure I take him when that happens. I try to build him back up the best I can."
Carter chuckles, though it's humorless. "And you think by doing that you aren't making the boy fall head over fucking heels in love with you?" Carter fixes him with a look. "Come on, Nate. You're not that stupid."
“It’s-” Nathan pauses, sighing heavily. "It's not what he thinks. It's not love. It's fucking Stockholm Syndrome, or some shit like that. It's not real."
Carter knows Nathan isn't referring to how Carter loved him when he thought he was in the same position as Nolan, but it still feels like he is. It hurts.
With trembling hands, Carter takes a new file.
It’s then that Carter notices something. He goes back to the past 3 files, double checking. He was right. The sticky notes are all written in the exact same handwriting. A familiar one.
Carter drags his fingertips over the most recent file’s top sticky note. “Who wrote this?”
Nathan looks away, hiding his face from Carter. “Me…”
“You wrote all of these?”
“Yes.” Nathan clears his throat, but his voice is still a little shaky when he speaks. "Whenever we get a new one. Unless Benny supervised the purchase, like he did with Gabe the other day.”
“How do you put it all together?”
“It’s easy enough. These days, people put their whole lives on the internet. I know how to hack basic stuff. Private social media profiles. School and medical records."
It makes sense. In fact, it's rather obvious now that he thinks about it, but Carter still feels floored by the development. Nathan not only keeps files on every slave he's ever owned - both as a way to remind himself of why he's doing this and also as a way to keep track of them so he can free them - but he writes little notes about them too. He goes and finds pictures of them happy. He dives into their lives until each one is a fully formed human to him.
It must be exhausting emotionally, to get to know all of these men and women so intimately, and watch them go through what they do. It's the opposite of detaching. The opposite of keeping professional. These files aren't made by Nathan.
These are made by Travis.
And that leaves Carter with one burning question. “Do you have one on me?”
